The relationship between critical success factors of total quality management and process improvement: a case study

Mohammad Saljoughian, Sayeed-Mohsen Allameh, Reza Dabestani and Maedeh Rabbanimehr

International Journal of Business Excellence, 2014, vol. 7, issue 3, 411-427

Abstract: Companies' urge to survive in today's highly competitive globalised market and their attempts to maximise their profits gave birth to the concept of total quality management (TQM). TQM is still trendy and a great number of companies are actively implementing its rules, regulations, and procedures. However, the concept is rather complicated, culture-bound, and diverse and calls for further studies in new settings. Service section is one setting that has not received its proper attention in this regard. Therefore, we aim to examine the relationship between a group of TQM techniques called critical success factors and process improvement in service companies. To reach that end, we clustered our sample of employees based on their perceptions of TQM critical success factors and then compared the clusters' level of process improvement. The results reveal that the level of the process improvement differs significantly between the established groups of employees. This suggests that companies' different levels of process improvement can be due to their human resource appreciation of TQM critical success factors.

Keywords: total quality management; TQM; critical success factors; CSFs; cluster analysis; process improvement; employees; human resources; soft factors; service industry; services. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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